Discovery Science Place
Discovery Science Place in Tyler, designed by Butler Architectural Group,
is a hands-on museum for children of all ages. The museum has been
located in the same early-1900s building for the past 15 years and recently
acquired an adjacent structure. The space between the buildings had been
used as a parking area for museum patrons. The new design reclaims this
area for outdoor science displays and learning stations, and unites the two
buildings while adding indoor and exterior learning spaces. The design
also re-imagines the entrance to the museum. A plaza drop-off/pick-up
space is located at the new entrance and a renovated lobby descends from
a higher parking area to the main floor of the museum directing visitors
to several different galleries. The new addition serves as a waiting area
for children and parents, and provides views to an outdoor space for
educational activities. A sunscreen protects glass walls from the southern
sun and provides side display panels for an outdoor, shaded, terraced
classroom. The project is expected to be completed in early 2012.

Gateway Park
Gateway Park, designed by Perkins+Will’s Dallas office for a site outside
Jackson, Miss., is conceived as an emerging type of mixed-use development known as an “airport city.” The 4.45 million-sf project is located in
Mississippi directly south of Jackson-Evers International Airport on 200
acres of woodland. A newly approved Airport Parkway will bisect the site
and create a shortcut from downtown Jackson. An office campus, a 10,000seat performing arts center, and a series of hotels, offices, and retail facilities make up the program. The development is based on a circular shape
that visually stands out to incoming air traffic and to motorists along the
airport’s main road. The architects included sustainable-design features
such as expansive rooftops that will capture solar energy or serve as thermal masses through green roofs, as well as pond surfaces aligned with
prevailing winds to provide inductive cooling for outdoor public spaces.
Another strategy for renewable energy employs wind turbines – that double
as kinetic art work – installed parallel to the new parkway.

Numinous Space
Architectural designer William Helm conceived Numinous Space as a
design experiment, on an undisturbed 10-acre tract in a Chihuahuan
desert basin between El Paso and Las Cruces. Inspired by James Turrell’s
Roden Crater, Helm proposes to construct four elevated observation posts
that frame views out to the surroundings from spaces designed to alter
one’s perception of objective reality through optical phenomena. The four
views of Numinous Space are: the horizontal Alpenglow, which sets up a
foreshortened condition that flattens the perceived distance between the
nearby man-made elements and distant mountains; the vertical Skylight,
which guides the eye along a narrow slice across the site that corresponds
to a vertical element on the horizon; the rectangular Mirage, which speaks
to the purity of the horizon on a plain of vast extent; and the hemispherical
Afterglow (shown), which melds the orange light of evening twilight with
the cobalt blue of the overhead sky. Numinous Space was recognized with
a 2010 AIA El Paso Honor Award in the studio category. (See p. 23.)